Need Inspiration?

Contents

Click the Options button to configure the way WisdomSpray works, or to change the phrase lists. The Options dialog has five tabs: Font, Speech, Effects, Wisdom, and Yes/no. Each tabbed page controls a different aspect of WisdomSpray's behavior.

The Font tab lets you control what fonts WisdomSpray will use when spraying out words of wisdom. By default, the program uses the On each word setting to select a font at random for every word. Other choices for randomize the font are On each message and Never. If you choose Never, you can click Set font to choose the font. The Don't randomize color box forces WisdomSpray to use the same text color even when randomizing fonts; click Set color to choose that color. You can set the selection of random font sizes to a subset of WisdomSpray's full range of 12 to 48 points. If you want the random fonts to maintain a fixed size, just set the maximum and minimum to the same value.

The Banned fonts panel contains a pull-down list of all fonts you have excluded. Fonts can be banned two ways: from the dialog invoked by clicking the Set font button, or by right-clicking on a word tile, which bans the font used in that tile. A preview area shows the text "ABC123" in the selected font. Click the Lift ban button to remove the font from the list. Click Clear to completely clear the list.

If a Microsoft-compatible TTS engine is installed on your computer, you have the option of making WisdomSpray speak. If not, the Speech tab controls will be disabled. See the beginning of this article for instructions on adding TTS. Click the Pronunciation button if the speech engine mispronounces words. The dialog that appears is controlled by the TTS engine, not by WisdomSpray, and will differ for different engines. Click the Properties button to see the TTS engine's information dialog (usually a simple About box).

The Effects page in the Options dialog lets you adjust many of WisdomSpray's visual effects. The first set of boxes control animation. By default, WisdomSpray visibly sprays its words onto the desktop. The words are also animated when you click Unspray, or when you right-click a word and choose Delete. If you'd rather not see this animation, you can clear the Animate spray and Animate unspray boxes on this page. When you click Scramble, WisdomSpray calculates new positions for all of the word windows. If Animate scramble is checked, the word windows visibly travel to their new positions; if not, they simply snap into place.

You can select different effects to be used when you click Phase out to remove all the words. The Fade away option, which causes the words to gradually disappear, is only available under Windows 2000. This option won't appear on the Phase out page under other operating systems. The Shrink away selection causes the words to be reduced to a point, then disappear, and is available under Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows Me. Here again, the option will not appear under unsupported operating systems. The remaining Phase out effects are available under all supported platforms. If you select Slices, the words will disappear in several stages, with slivers cut out of them (see Figure 4). Choose Tumble and the words will tremble and then fall off the screen. If you check the Phase out at shutdown box, the words will perform the selected animation before the program terminates.

The Transparency selections are only available under Windows 2000 and won't appear under other operating systems. The transparency level you select affects all word tiles created after the change. If you set a level other than (None), objects behind the word tiles, including other word tiles, will show through to a greater or lesser extent (see Figure 5).

WisdomSpray comes with several dozen inspirational quotes, but of course wisdom comes from within. We hope you will add your own favorite aphorisms to the list. If you want to seek wisdom elsewhere, a Web search on "Quote of the Day" or "QOTD" will turn up many sources. To add a new saying, you can use the simple editing window on the Wisdom page of the Options dialog. Order isn't important because sayings are selected at random. However, you may want to insert new items in alphabetical order.

The aphorisms are stored in the file wisdom.txt, in the same folder as the program. You can edit this file in Notepad or another word processor, if you prefer. However, you must not do so while WisdomSpray's Options dialog is open. If you edit wisdom.txt while WisdomSpray is running, the changes will take effect the next time you run the program or the next time you open the Options dialog and click OK. If you accidentally wipe out wisdom.txt, or make sweeping changes that you later regret, click the Restore default list button. This will restore all of the sayings from WisdomSpray's original list without eliminating any you have added, without duplication, and, as a side effect, will sort the list of sayings in alphabetic order.

Each of WisdomSpray's included sayings ends with the author's name in parentheses. By default, the program treats words within parentheses no differently from other words. The Let be option represents this behavior. If you wish to leave out the names, check the Omit option. Now any time WisdomSpray finds a parenthetical phrase at the very end of a saying, it will omit the phrase entirely. You also can click In block to have the words comprising the author's name kept together, appearing in a single word tile rather than in several.

WisdomSpray comes with a handful of positive, negative, and indecisive answers for yes/no questions. As with the aphorisms, you can add to the list using the editing window on the Yes/No page of the Options dialog, or with any text editor. The yes/no answers are stored in the file yesno.txt, in the same folder as the program. If you use an external word processor, close WisdomSpray first or the changes won't take effect until the next time you run the program or the next time you open the Options dialog and click OK. Click the Restore default list button to create a sorted list of all the answers from WisdomSpray's original list, along with any you have added.